See, that's what's nice about not being a partisan hack.
Something you obviously know nothing about, being a partisan hack. Anybody that "Oh, it's Fox and Glenn Beck you tea-bagger ignoramous"... yea, tell us more about how you're not a partisan hack, you partisan hack.
Curtis admitted to eavesdropping. You didn't bother to read the source link in the article you tried to cite, did you? And which republican is responsible for O'Keefe's actual attempt to actually place an actual bug in a senators office, not just eavesdrop by an office door?
Well now I have (what a long-winded, whiny blowhard). The device used is irrelevant. He didn't plant a bug and leave, he held the bug in his hand and left with it. You can scream "it was eavesdropping not bugging" all you want - it's a distinction without a difference.
Dude. Both liberal and conservatives were scrutinized under a Bush appointee. Deal with it.
Not really. First, while the commissioner was appointed during the final months of Bush's presidency, he is a Democrat who materially supports the Democrat party, supported Obama, and was selected by Max Baucus because Bush could not get a Republican confirmed at that time in a Democratic congress. IRS Commissioners serve 5 years, so they would not confirm an appointment without having a say in it. The commissioner's wife famously works for a progressive organization and actively campaigned for Obama.
It was targeted at conservatives. There has been one IRS official that claimed certain other groups were also on the list, but none have seen the kind of 2-3 year delays and outrageous scrutiny that was applied to the conservatives groups, so the claim is not even credible.
Stuff like more winger bullshit? How is denying FOIA requests - which he's doing wholesale on the military-industrial-surveillance-war crimes complex - "punishing" "enemies", exactly? Obama loves right wing big agri/petrol business as much as his predecessor.
Denial, diversion, distraction etc. What the EPA loves is Taxpayer-supported NGOs that promote the globalist environmental agenda, and they prove it over and over by not only funding those organizations, but actively discriminating against others, in violation of the law.
Pretty please...don't you have a less ignorant Ayn reading brother in law you could call in here, or something?
You love these unfounded associative ad-hominems, don't you?
Offensives against North Vietnam were what was ended in 1973. The war itself and the occupation of South Vietnam weren't ended until 1975: [wikipedia.org]
How about that Trans-Pacific partnership, which will overrule by treaty state and federal laws protecting American workers and consumers. How about giving the military the authority to step in an "emergency" domestic situation to "restore order".
I rail against that crap, too, but the worst things are all the stuff he (rightly) blasted Bush for doing during the campaign, then proceeded to embrace when he took office.
You do know that democratic groups were not just given equal scrutiny by the IRS, but that the only group to be denied tax-exempt status was a democratic group? And this all happened under a Bush appointee to the IRS?
As it turns out, the commissioner was appointed during the Bush presidency, but was actually a Democratic technocrat from K Street, selected by Max Baucus. He's a Democrat and a active supporter of the Democratic party. At the time (2008), the senate was controlled by Democrats. The IRS Commissioner gets a 5-year appointment, and the Democrats would not confirm an appointee selected by Bush, suggesting he appoint an "acting" commissioner instead. But the law only allows an acting commissioner to serve a couple of months. So Bush made a deal with Baucus, who selected Shulman. His wife works for a far-left progressive organization and actively campaigned for Obama. So it seems that even though the commissioner was appointed during Bush's term, he is a Democrat and supporter of Obama. That's even more telling since Baucus was one of the senators that wrote a letter to the commissioner asking that they apply more scrutiny to applications of 501(c) groups.
Good response, I have to hand it to you. And you're obviously quite informed. I won't try to address everything you've brought up, but I'll respond to a couple of things:
For the last, I hate the NSA spying programs, but is there any evidence they've specifically went after reporters? I'd love to hear it.
This was a big deal in the news, but it was overshadowed by some of the other stuff going on, not surprised not everyone heard about it. Basically, the justice department obtained months of AP reporters' phone records, a rather huge sweep rather than a targeted investigation, just looking for evidence of leaks. So far, Holder has not been forthcoming about why they did it.
Obama's ATF, at least, was selling the guns to try to track down criminals with an intent to disrupt and arrest them -- not to deliberately support them.
According to them (politicians / liars, but I repeat myself). But, according to some, the real purpose was to supply guns to the largest cartel, allow them to wipe out their rivals, with the theory that a single large cartel could be manipulated better than all the little competing groups. Who to believe? I don't know, but in either case you could claim that there were good intentions involved. But then we know what road is paved with that.
I do, in fact, credit Obama with following up on Iraq and Afghanistan as he said he would (even though I disagree with his decision to escalate / continue the conflict in Afghanistan. But the Middle East strategy is still the same one created during the Bush administration, and so is the domestic spying, secret programs, drug trade, corporate welfare, and other fascist programs, and I condemn him for that, doubly so because he promised MUCH different.
Could we get some winger trolls that are a little less willfully ignorant please?
Back at you, Obamabot.
1. Someone walking by and recording a conversation with a handheld device isn't "bugging", it's "eavesdropping". No device left in the room? Then it's not bugged.
2. Obama is responsible for the actions of every democrat in the country now? In that case, which republican is responsible for James O'Keefe's actual attempt to bug a senator's office?
He's exactly as responsible as Nixon was for G. Gordon Libby's actions.
You do know that democratic groups were not just given equal scrutiny by the IRS, but that the only group to be denied tax-exempt status was a democratic group?
That's pretty disingenuous to delay, repeat continually more and more probing questions over the course of up to 3 years in some cases, and then claim "but none were denied. Yea, technically true, I guess. I don't know what denial you're referring to (probably an Occupy group - anything populist is viewed a threat to the statists in charge), site if you have it. But I do know that OFA got their tax-exempt status quickly and without a hitch, in spite of being "politically inclined", which was exactly the excuse stated for targeting the Tea Party / Liberty groups.
And this all happened under a Bush appointee to the IRS?
I don't think W appointees are any more ethical than Obama appointees. At best, maybe some of them were savvy enough to hide it better.
As for the EPA, you mean the agency where the Obama Administration had to be taken to court to actual enforce EPA regulations rather than giving industry a free pass? That EPA?
There are plenty of favored industries under the Obama Administration, probably just as many as there were under Bush, but most were different companies (other than some banks and Wall Streeters). So that's not surprising. But we were talking about using agencies for targeting political enemies, not providing favors. Stuff like this.
You mean Ford ended the war.
As Vice President? You'll have to explain that, or admit you're wrong. The United States officially ended its military involvement in Vietnam on March 29, 1973, and Nixon didn't resign until August 9, 1974.
How so? There's a lot of speculation in the article you posted (there is a warning at the top about "Original research" violations), but it basically says G. Gordon Liddy was the principal orchestrator involved. Liddy was working for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, a fund-raising organization part of the political campaign. So that wasn't "the government", and it certainly wasn't Nixon that did it, even if you want to speculate about how much he may have known about it.
He made the decision to expand the Vietnam conflict into Cambodia!
Actually, that already happened under Johnson, who authorized surveillance missions into the region. Nixon actually refused to go into Cambodia when the generals first suggested it, but changed his mind after the Mini-Tet offensive when Saigon was attacked. His overall policy, though, was moving toward an exit strategy and withdrawal.
The story is about political groups applying for tax-exempt status, something they are not legally allowed.
You mean like OFA? Oh, no, wait... they got their tax exempt status right away, while other groups still don't have an answer after three years. Yes, I'm sure it's nothing to do with politics.
The outrage isn't fake, it's stirred up (probably intentionally) by fucktards like you spouting the kind of bullshit that you just did.
How is creating an "enemies list" worse than targeting your enemies through the IRS
One can actually be attributed to the President and the other can't.
Actually, to be perfectly accurate neither can be attributed to the President, they were both created by campaign personnel and staffers. Nixon, however, didn't enlist an army of supporters to go after his enemies, like Obama did.
"Even Nixon pails (sic) in comparison with Obama."
Rose colored glasses much? Or maybe too many martinis at lunch. While I'm less and less enthralled with Obama, nobody holds a candle to Nixon / Kissinger in terms of malfeasance and outright illegality.
How is the Watergate break-in worse than bugging the campaign office of Mitch McConnell? How is creating an "enemies list" worse than targeting your enemies through the IRS, the EPA, and other federal agencies, and have the NSA spy on them and on reporters?
Nixon never orchestrated a false flag kidnapping at a consulate, and then tried to cover it up when it went south. He never sold weapons to drug cartels. He didn't target children with drones, either. He ENDED the Vietnam war, and didn't start any others, or try to interfere with any other countries' civil unrest and internal politics.
As bad as Nixon may have been, when it comes to malfeasance and illegality, well, Obama refuses to resign, but 3 federal courts so far have already said Obama has broken the law.
and everything to do with correcting runaway inflation caused by an oil embargo.
You know nothing! Inflation was caused by the Federal Reserve, which should have started reducing monetary growth after 1964, when it was clear inflation was looming. They couldn't, though, because it would be politically damaging to Johnson (and later to Nixon, who famously claimed that no president is defeated for reelection because of inflation, only because of unemployment).
Nixon, of course, also eliminated the gold standard, turning the US Dollar into full fiat status. The oil embargo (OPEC) was a reaction to that, and the loss of confidence in the value of the dollar. Secret deals with Saudi Arabia solidified the petro-dollar, which OPEC was threatening to drop.
So the oil embargo was a result of the Fed and Nixon's monetary policies and the resultant run-away inflation, not the cause of it.
Even as governments increase their secrecy, they demand increasing ability to track and spy on their subjects.
Virginia is a "pilot" state for the on-line identity system that is being promoted by Microsoft and will be used for both private and government transactions. This is being run and promoted by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA).
The Cross Sector Digital Identity Initiative (CSDII), led by AAMVA is developing technology that will demonstrate the acceptance of commercial identity provider credentials by Virginia state government, including securely verifying identities online with the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. The pilot plans to make this technology available for voluntary access to on-line state services over the course of the project. State governments, including Virginia, are exploring leveraging commercial identity providers for secure online access to state government websites, ostensibly "as a means to improve customer service and reduce the costs associated with online identity management". In the case of sensitive government transactions, the credential is “leveled up” to higher assurances of identity verification and security.
Pilot partner Microsoft is providing a secure, privacy-enhancing cloud identity service, Customer Partner and Identity Manager (CPIM), and OpenID-based interoperable Windows Accounts to pilot participants. The pilot will also explore increasing the security of the Windows Account and other pilot interoperable credentials by enabling the Biometric Signature ID multifactor authentication solution, BioSig-ID. The BioSig-ID solution measures unique behavioral characteristics as the user draws a password on the computer screen, deriving an additional factor of authentication to supplement user name and password and thereby increasing account security in a user friendly fashion.
On the association's web site is the Policy Positions PDF document, which connects Real ID to PRISM. Page 15 includes:
4. PRISM
AAMVA supports the federal-state safety program PRISM (Performance and Registration Information Systems Management) and encourages the States to become active participants of the program. PRISM is designed to utilize the commercial vehicle registration process of the States by determining the safety fitness of the motor carrier prior to issuing license plates and by motivating the carrier to improve its safety performance either through an improvement process or the application of registration sanctions.
What they don't tell you is that PRISM is the same system used for collecting and storing communications by the NSA. How convenient! So not only will they have all personal information about you, they will have all your communications integrated into one convenient data storage system.
We are fairly sure now that inequality really is bad, even just relative inequality in a world where everyone's basic needs are met.
Who is "we"?
This is a... question about human well-being, and it's answerable in principle if not in practice. Just existing in an unequal society puts mental stress on human beings which correlates to significant negative health outcomes both physically and mentally.
I know that you're dissatisfied with your position and your place. But don't you understand it's not my problem?
If you could instantly inflate the US economy ten fold, but following the same trend of inequality growth, you'd actually be doing a terrible thing. Everyone would have more wealth in an absolute sense, but the massive increase in inequality would make the majority of people demonstrably less happy.
So, wait, you're talking about everyone 10 TIMES as wealthy, in absolute (not relative) terms? So I'm working the same, but can now afford 10 TIMES as much? It sounds like you're assuming that all human happiness is based on whether they are envious of someone else. Sorry, but that has nothing to do with income inequality. You can be envious of someone's looks, or their musical talents, or many other things. There are plenty of wealthy people jealous of what some poor people have - often, that's HAPPINESS. Because money doesn't make you happy, and neither does making sure no one has more money than you.
Except that Big Oil won't like that and similarly none of the politicians in the pockets of Big Oil will be in favor of that.
It's telling that we can't just build cities that fulfill what people want. Instead, we expect some bureaucracy to know how everyone should live, so the Agenda 21 folks and the Big Oil lobbyists fight each other for influence over planning decisions. If only there was some principle or system for getting suppliers to provide what people want...
In the mean time if you wish to live in this society, obey its laws.
Wrong.
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it
Often the first step of this Right (and duty) is to disobey unjust laws, created by a government that has passed laws to favor the wealthy and well-connected, instead of those in the best interests of the governed.
If you think that impotence and balding don't cause suffering, you are indeed ignorant. Furthermore, both are symptoms of more fundamental flaws which, if solved, would provide longer and healthier lives. I'll grant you that angst over balding is somewhat shallow, but that doesn't make the resultant depression unreal.
There are a lot worse problems. You can argue about what the government should be spending its citizens' hard-earned money on, but if you think spending it on balding research is way up on the list, in a country already trillions of dollars in debt, is way up on the list, then it is you that are demonstrating stunning ignorance.
Sorry you're balding. Spend your own money on some Rogaine, and stop demanding public money for your $250/yr UC professors and the pharmaceutical corporation profit-sharing.
Health care is not trauma care. You're an idiot. Quality of life and lifestyle moderation is exactly what good healthcare is about.
Do you take your car to a body shop to get your brake pads replaced? If you wait long enough you may have to (have your rotors planed). Maintenance can prevent a lot of problems. Health care is good maintenance.
So... you take away people's choices in what they eat, force them to exercise, require them to visit a "provider" periodically (ensuring that enough are trained in that field, regardless of their wishes), and soon you'll have lots of much healthier... slaves. Great plan, Your Grace!
Lower infant mortality, longer life spans, etc. are *clearly* made up statistics. There is *no* way such numbers could ever be come up with that could be trusted-- impossible./sarcasm
Facts oppose your opinion. If spreading unsubstantiated FUD is your only counter then you have no rational basis for your opinion.
If you feel otherwise, provide citations please.
What do those statistics have to do with health care? Infant mortality is calculated so much differently in each country, it's difficult to make any comparison at all, and life span is about life style, not quality of health care systems. Try checking, for instance, cancer survival rates, medical treatment for heart attack victims and survivability, trauma survival after emergency care, and mobility restoration after stroke. That's how you measure the quality of health care, not by when people die, by how the treatment they get works after they require it.
There are certainly cost and access problems with health care in the United States, but Obamacare really doesn't do anything to fix those problems, and it exacerbates many of them. This is just one example of that.
I just filled out my BS bingo card when they called both "horizontal integration" and "vertical integration".
On topic: The path of least regret would have been single payer system, but we somehow ended up with a Republican profit-utopia called "Obamacare".
Maybe he should have had all the meetings in the open, and broadcast on CSPAN, like he promised to do during the campaign, instead of negotiating the entire thing behind closed doors with the corporate executives and buying votes with pork and bribes.
To be a successful corporation in today's Amehrica, you cannot just spend all your time and money on a single party. You have to buy members of both parties in order to maintain your cozy relationship with the federal bureaucrats.
worked with states to build resiliency and make our nation's emergency and disaster response capabilities more robust;
So..nothing again. At least, nothing quantifiable, which is pretty much the same thing.
Oh, no, this one isn't "nothing", you've read it wrong. What they mean by this is "we have equipped your local police force will military equipment and trained them how to treat the local residents as enemy soldiers." And they've done a really good job at it. They're now using no-knock paramilitary raids for pretty much any suspect, whether they are considered potentially violent or not. And killing the pets.
Getting rid of UC's medical research facilities is indeed a very simple answer.
Didn't "simple" used to be one of the euphemisms for "mentally retarded"?
I think the GP was referring to the military contracts, not necessarily the medical research. Be that as it may, it seems wasteful (and... cronyish) to hire a powerful Federal administrator that can use influence and connections to obtain grant money rather than allow the grant applications to pass or fail based on the merits of the research involved. They've already gotten too focused on "monetizing patents", which can bring in a lot of money for treating things like sexual dysfunction and balding, than on work to actually cure diseases that cause suffering and death.
Slashdot Mirror
See, that's what's nice about not being a partisan hack.
Something you obviously know nothing about, being a partisan hack. Anybody that "Oh, it's Fox and Glenn Beck you tea-bagger ignoramous" ... yea, tell us more about how you're not a partisan hack, you partisan hack.
Curtis admitted to eavesdropping. You didn't bother to read the source link in the article you tried to cite, did you? And which republican is responsible for O'Keefe's actual attempt to actually place an actual bug in a senators office, not just eavesdrop by an office door?
Well now I have (what a long-winded, whiny blowhard). The device used is irrelevant. He didn't plant a bug and leave, he held the bug in his hand and left with it. You can scream "it was eavesdropping not bugging" all you want - it's a distinction without a difference.
Dude. Both liberal and conservatives were scrutinized under a Bush appointee. Deal with it.
Not really. First, while the commissioner was appointed during the final months of Bush's presidency, he is a Democrat who materially supports the Democrat party, supported Obama, and was selected by Max Baucus because Bush could not get a Republican confirmed at that time in a Democratic congress. IRS Commissioners serve 5 years, so they would not confirm an appointment without having a say in it. The commissioner's wife famously works for a progressive organization and actively campaigned for Obama.
It was targeted at conservatives. There has been one IRS official that claimed certain other groups were also on the list, but none have seen the kind of 2-3 year delays and outrageous scrutiny that was applied to the conservatives groups, so the claim is not even credible.
Stuff like more winger bullshit? How is denying FOIA requests - which he's doing wholesale on the military-industrial-surveillance-war crimes complex - "punishing" "enemies", exactly? Obama loves right wing big agri/petrol business as much as his predecessor.
Denial, diversion, distraction etc. What the EPA loves is Taxpayer-supported NGOs that promote the globalist environmental agenda, and they prove it over and over by not only funding those organizations, but actively discriminating against others, in violation of the law.
Pretty please...don't you have a less ignorant Ayn reading brother in law you could call in here, or something?
You love these unfounded associative ad-hominems, don't you?
Offensives against North Vietnam were what was ended in 1973. The war itself and the occupation of South Vietnam weren't ended until 1975: [wikipedia.org]
And, apparently, using Wikipedia as a source. Forty years ago, on March 29, 1973, the United States ended its military involvement in Vietnam. Although the war would continue another two years, the South Vietnamese would no longer receive American assistance. Whoopsie doopsie indeed.
How about that Trans-Pacific partnership, which will overrule by treaty state and federal laws protecting American workers and consumers. How about giving the military the authority to step in an "emergency" domestic situation to "restore order".
I rail against that crap, too, but the worst things are all the stuff he (rightly) blasted Bush for doing during the campaign, then proceeded to embrace when he took office.
You do know that democratic groups were not just given equal scrutiny by the IRS, but that the only group to be denied tax-exempt status was a democratic group? And this all happened under a Bush appointee to the IRS?
As it turns out, the commissioner was appointed during the Bush presidency, but was actually a Democratic technocrat from K Street, selected by Max Baucus. He's a Democrat and a active supporter of the Democratic party. At the time (2008), the senate was controlled by Democrats. The IRS Commissioner gets a 5-year appointment, and the Democrats would not confirm an appointee selected by Bush, suggesting he appoint an "acting" commissioner instead. But the law only allows an acting commissioner to serve a couple of months. So Bush made a deal with Baucus, who selected Shulman. His wife works for a far-left progressive organization and actively campaigned for Obama. So it seems that even though the commissioner was appointed during Bush's term, he is a Democrat and supporter of Obama. That's even more telling since Baucus was one of the senators that wrote a letter to the commissioner asking that they apply more scrutiny to applications of 501(c) groups.
Good response, I have to hand it to you. And you're obviously quite informed. I won't try to address everything you've brought up, but I'll respond to a couple of things:
For the last, I hate the NSA spying programs, but is there any evidence they've specifically went after reporters? I'd love to hear it.
This was a big deal in the news, but it was overshadowed by some of the other stuff going on, not surprised not everyone heard about it. Basically, the justice department obtained months of AP reporters' phone records, a rather huge sweep rather than a targeted investigation, just looking for evidence of leaks. So far, Holder has not been forthcoming about why they did it.
Obama's ATF, at least, was selling the guns to try to track down criminals with an intent to disrupt and arrest them -- not to deliberately support them.
According to them (politicians / liars, but I repeat myself). But, according to some, the real purpose was to supply guns to the largest cartel, allow them to wipe out their rivals, with the theory that a single large cartel could be manipulated better than all the little competing groups. Who to believe? I don't know, but in either case you could claim that there were good intentions involved. But then we know what road is paved with that.
I do, in fact, credit Obama with following up on Iraq and Afghanistan as he said he would (even though I disagree with his decision to escalate / continue the conflict in Afghanistan. But the Middle East strategy is still the same one created during the Bush administration, and so is the domestic spying, secret programs, drug trade, corporate welfare, and other fascist programs, and I condemn him for that, doubly so because he promised MUCH different.
Could we get some winger trolls that are a little less willfully ignorant please?
Back at you, Obamabot.
1. Someone walking by and recording a conversation with a handheld device isn't "bugging", it's "eavesdropping". No device left in the room? Then it's not bugged.
Yet Curtis Morrison admitted bugging the McConnell office.
2. Obama is responsible for the actions of every democrat in the country now? In that case, which republican is responsible for James O'Keefe's actual attempt to bug a senator's office?
He's exactly as responsible as Nixon was for G. Gordon Libby's actions.
You do know that democratic groups were not just given equal scrutiny by the IRS, but that the only group to be denied tax-exempt status was a democratic group?
That's pretty disingenuous to delay, repeat continually more and more probing questions over the course of up to 3 years in some cases, and then claim "but none were denied. Yea, technically true, I guess. I don't know what denial you're referring to (probably an Occupy group - anything populist is viewed a threat to the statists in charge), site if you have it. But I do know that OFA got their tax-exempt status quickly and without a hitch, in spite of being "politically inclined", which was exactly the excuse stated for targeting the Tea Party / Liberty groups.
And this all happened under a Bush appointee to the IRS?
I don't think W appointees are any more ethical than Obama appointees. At best, maybe some of them were savvy enough to hide it better.
As for the EPA, you mean the agency where the Obama Administration had to be taken to court to actual enforce EPA regulations rather than giving industry a free pass? That EPA?
There are plenty of favored industries under the Obama Administration, probably just as many as there were under Bush, but most were different companies (other than some banks and Wall Streeters). So that's not surprising. But we were talking about using agencies for targeting political enemies, not providing favors. Stuff like this.
You mean Ford ended the war.
As Vice President? You'll have to explain that, or admit you're wrong. The United States officially ended its military involvement in Vietnam on March 29, 1973, and Nixon didn't resign until August 9, 1974.
Ok, so you just lied.
How so? There's a lot of speculation in the article you posted (there is a warning at the top about "Original research" violations), but it basically says G. Gordon Liddy was the principal orchestrator involved. Liddy was working for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, a fund-raising organization part of the political campaign. So that wasn't "the government", and it certainly wasn't Nixon that did it, even if you want to speculate about how much he may have known about it.
He made the decision to expand the Vietnam conflict into Cambodia!
Actually, that already happened under Johnson, who authorized surveillance missions into the region. Nixon actually refused to go into Cambodia when the generals first suggested it, but changed his mind after the Mini-Tet offensive when Saigon was attacked. His overall policy, though, was moving toward an exit strategy and withdrawal.
The story is about political groups applying for tax-exempt status, something they are not legally allowed.
You mean like OFA? Oh, no, wait... they got their tax exempt status right away, while other groups still don't have an answer after three years. Yes, I'm sure it's nothing to do with politics.
The outrage isn't fake, it's stirred up (probably intentionally) by fucktards like you spouting the kind of bullshit that you just did.
How is creating an "enemies list" worse than targeting your enemies through the IRS
One can actually be attributed to the President and the other can't.
Actually, to be perfectly accurate neither can be attributed to the President, they were both created by campaign personnel and staffers. Nixon, however, didn't enlist an army of supporters to go after his enemies, like Obama did.
How is the Watergate break-in worse than bugging the campaign office of Mitch McConnell?
Because that wasn't done by the government, much less Obama? That seems like a pretty tremendous degree of dissembling on your part.
And shows a stunning ignorance of history on your part. The Watergate break-in wasn't done by the government or Nixon, either.
"Even Nixon pails (sic) in comparison with Obama."
Rose colored glasses much? Or maybe too many martinis at lunch. While I'm less and less enthralled with Obama, nobody holds a candle to Nixon / Kissinger in terms of malfeasance and outright illegality.
How is the Watergate break-in worse than bugging the campaign office of Mitch McConnell? How is creating an "enemies list" worse than targeting your enemies through the IRS, the EPA, and other federal agencies, and have the NSA spy on them and on reporters?
Nixon never orchestrated a false flag kidnapping at a consulate, and then tried to cover it up when it went south. He never sold weapons to drug cartels. He didn't target children with drones, either. He ENDED the Vietnam war, and didn't start any others, or try to interfere with any other countries' civil unrest and internal politics.
As bad as Nixon may have been, when it comes to malfeasance and illegality, well, Obama refuses to resign, but 3 federal courts so far have already said Obama has broken the law.
and everything to do with correcting runaway inflation caused by an oil embargo.
You know nothing! Inflation was caused by the Federal Reserve, which should have started reducing monetary growth after 1964, when it was clear inflation was looming. They couldn't, though, because it would be politically damaging to Johnson (and later to Nixon, who famously claimed that no president is defeated for reelection because of inflation, only because of unemployment).
Nixon, of course, also eliminated the gold standard, turning the US Dollar into full fiat status. The oil embargo (OPEC) was a reaction to that, and the loss of confidence in the value of the dollar. Secret deals with Saudi Arabia solidified the petro-dollar, which OPEC was threatening to drop.
So the oil embargo was a result of the Fed and Nixon's monetary policies and the resultant run-away inflation, not the cause of it.
Even as governments increase their secrecy, they demand increasing ability to track and spy on their subjects.
Virginia is a "pilot" state for the on-line identity system that is being promoted by Microsoft and will be used for both private and government transactions. This is being run and promoted by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA).
The Cross Sector Digital Identity Initiative (CSDII), led by AAMVA is developing technology that will demonstrate the acceptance of commercial identity provider credentials by Virginia state government, including securely verifying identities online with the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. The pilot plans to make this technology available for voluntary access to on-line state services over the course of the project. State governments, including Virginia, are exploring leveraging commercial identity providers for secure online access to state government websites, ostensibly "as a means to improve customer service and reduce the costs associated with online identity management". In the case of sensitive government transactions, the credential is “leveled up” to higher assurances of identity verification and security.
Pilot partner Microsoft is providing a secure, privacy-enhancing cloud identity service, Customer Partner and Identity Manager (CPIM), and OpenID-based interoperable Windows Accounts to pilot participants. The pilot will also explore increasing the security of the Windows Account and other pilot interoperable credentials by enabling the Biometric Signature ID multifactor authentication solution, BioSig-ID. The BioSig-ID solution measures unique behavioral characteristics as the user draws a password on the computer screen, deriving an additional factor of authentication to supplement user name and password and thereby increasing account security in a user friendly fashion.
On the association's web site is the Policy Positions PDF document, which connects Real ID to PRISM. Page 15 includes:
What they don't tell you is that PRISM is the same system used for collecting and storing communications by the NSA. How convenient! So not only will they have all personal information about you, they will have all your communications integrated into one convenient data storage system.
We are fairly sure now that inequality really is bad, even just relative inequality in a world where everyone's basic needs are met.
Who is "we"?
This is a ... question about human well-being, and it's answerable in principle if not in practice. Just existing in an unequal society puts mental stress on human beings which correlates to significant negative health outcomes both physically and mentally.
I know that you're dissatisfied with your position and your place. But don't you understand it's not my problem?
If you could instantly inflate the US economy ten fold, but following the same trend of inequality growth, you'd actually be doing a terrible thing. Everyone would have more wealth in an absolute sense, but the massive increase in inequality would make the majority of people demonstrably less happy.
So, wait, you're talking about everyone 10 TIMES as wealthy, in absolute (not relative) terms? So I'm working the same, but can now afford 10 TIMES as much? It sounds like you're assuming that all human happiness is based on whether they are envious of someone else. Sorry, but that has nothing to do with income inequality. You can be envious of someone's looks, or their musical talents, or many other things. There are plenty of wealthy people jealous of what some poor people have - often, that's HAPPINESS. Because money doesn't make you happy, and neither does making sure no one has more money than you.
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Except that Big Oil won't like that and similarly none of the politicians in the pockets of Big Oil will be in favor of that.
It's telling that we can't just build cities that fulfill what people want. Instead, we expect some bureaucracy to know how everyone should live, so the Agenda 21 folks and the Big Oil lobbyists fight each other for influence over planning decisions. If only there was some principle or system for getting suppliers to provide what people want...
In the mean time if you wish to live in this society, obey its laws.
Wrong.
Often the first step of this Right (and duty) is to disobey unjust laws, created by a government that has passed laws to favor the wealthy and well-connected, instead of those in the best interests of the governed.
Dr. KiKi
If you think that impotence and balding don't cause suffering, you are indeed ignorant. Furthermore, both are symptoms of more fundamental flaws which, if solved, would provide longer and healthier lives. I'll grant you that angst over balding is somewhat shallow, but that doesn't make the resultant depression unreal.
There are a lot worse problems. You can argue about what the government should be spending its citizens' hard-earned money on, but if you think spending it on balding research is way up on the list, in a country already trillions of dollars in debt, is way up on the list, then it is you that are demonstrating stunning ignorance.
Sorry you're balding. Spend your own money on some Rogaine, and stop demanding public money for your $250/yr UC professors and the pharmaceutical corporation profit-sharing.
Health care is not trauma care. You're an idiot. Quality of life and lifestyle moderation is exactly what good healthcare is about.
Do you take your car to a body shop to get your brake pads replaced? If you wait long enough you may have to (have your rotors planed). Maintenance can prevent a lot of problems. Health care is good maintenance.
So... you take away people's choices in what they eat, force them to exercise, require them to visit a "provider" periodically (ensuring that enough are trained in that field, regardless of their wishes), and soon you'll have lots of much healthier ... slaves. Great plan, Your Grace!
Lower infant mortality, longer life spans, etc. are *clearly* made up statistics. There is *no* way such numbers could ever be come up with that could be trusted-- impossible. /sarcasm
Facts oppose your opinion. If spreading unsubstantiated FUD is your only counter then you have no rational basis for your opinion.
If you feel otherwise, provide citations please.
What do those statistics have to do with health care? Infant mortality is calculated so much differently in each country, it's difficult to make any comparison at all, and life span is about life style, not quality of health care systems. Try checking, for instance, cancer survival rates, medical treatment for heart attack victims and survivability, trauma survival after emergency care, and mobility restoration after stroke. That's how you measure the quality of health care, not by when people die, by how the treatment they get works after they require it.
There are certainly cost and access problems with health care in the United States, but Obamacare really doesn't do anything to fix those problems, and it exacerbates many of them. This is just one example of that.
I just filled out my BS bingo card when they called both "horizontal integration" and "vertical integration".
On topic: The path of least regret would have been single payer system, but we somehow ended up with a Republican profit-utopia called "Obamacare".
Maybe he should have had all the meetings in the open, and broadcast on CSPAN, like he promised to do during the campaign, instead of negotiating the entire thing behind closed doors with the corporate executives and buying votes with pork and bribes.
Whoosh! (Admittedly, it's a fairly obscure reference)
I don't believe in global warming, so I do not care what kind of phone I use.
Shut up, already. It's SCIENCE!
To be a successful corporation in today's Amehrica, you cannot just spend all your time and money on a single party. You have to buy members of both parties in order to maintain your cozy relationship with the federal bureaucrats.
worked with states to build resiliency and make our nation's emergency and disaster response capabilities more robust;
So..nothing again. At least, nothing quantifiable, which is pretty much the same thing.
Oh, no, this one isn't "nothing", you've read it wrong. What they mean by this is "we have equipped your local police force will military equipment and trained them how to treat the local residents as enemy soldiers." And they've done a really good job at it. They're now using no-knock paramilitary raids for pretty much any suspect, whether they are considered potentially violent or not. And killing the pets.
Getting rid of UC's medical research facilities is indeed a very simple answer.
Didn't "simple" used to be one of the euphemisms for "mentally retarded"?
I think the GP was referring to the military contracts, not necessarily the medical research. Be that as it may, it seems wasteful (and ... cronyish) to hire a powerful Federal administrator that can use influence and connections to obtain grant money rather than allow the grant applications to pass or fail based on the merits of the research involved. They've already gotten too focused on "monetizing patents", which can bring in a lot of money for treating things like sexual dysfunction and balding, than on work to actually cure diseases that cause suffering and death.